


The Earth Is Heavier Than the Sea

by gloss



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Inspired by Pan's Labyrinth, Multi, late treat, references to the transatlantic slave trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: Elizabeth Swann, Pirate King, enters an uncanny labyrinth to save her husbands.
Relationships: James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Three Day Rental: A Horror Themed Flash Exchange Round 1





	The Earth Is Heavier Than the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neosaiyanangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neosaiyanangel/gifts).



> The title comes from the Akan adinkra for Asase Yaa, Mother Earth.
> 
> No offense whatsoever, only great respect, is intended by the portrayal of this faith here. A majority of the African slaves brought to Jamaica were Akan.

Over the years, Port Royal has certainly seen countless odd couples, but the pair climbing the hill tonight would certainly rank high in the strangeness stakes. A tall figure, made yet taller by horns curving up from its head, with an uncovered woman’s torso and long, delicately-formed furry legs ending in elegant little hooves, hurries after a much smaller woman who strides forward.

“Please,” the goat-woman says, “Your Majesty, if only you would—“

“We’re already late,” the smaller woman replies. She does not slow. “Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes, but —“

She does stop now, turning so sharply that her cloak snaps around her. “Stay back if you want. I’ll go alone.”

The faun leaps forward to block the woman’s way. “Your Majesty, I cannot allow you to do that.” 

Her horns end in lethally sharp tips. When she bares her teeth, there are too many of them for a human mouth, all sharp, all slightly stained. Her breath smells of low-tide mud and old kelp as well as wine and rum.

Elizabeth Swann, Pirate King, tilts her head, considers her options, eases the sword at her hip a short way out of its sheath.

When the faun steps back, her breasts are exposed to the moonlight. Scales seem to play over her skin. Her hands end in claws, then shimmer to coiled tentacles.

She is the monster of a thousand forms. A faun tonight, a siren tomorrow.

Elizabeth sighs and resheathes her sword. “C’mon, Maggie. We don’t have time to fight.”

Maggie bows. “Thank you.”

“But if you wanted to take on another shape, preferably winged, to get us up this mountain, please feel free.”

Laughing, Maggie turns and resumes the climb.

“That wasn’t a jest!” Elizabeth says, hurrying to catch up.

The higher they climb, the darker it grows. They are well out of the city proper now, closer to the jungle’s mysteries than any tavern or dock. The path grows more and more uneven, finally dwindling to a narrow spill of rocks weaving through the trees. Birds shout mournfully overhead; the moon’s light snags in the canopy. When it does make its way to the ground, the light is broken into slivers, untrustworthy and strangely-angled.

“Here,” Maggie whispers. “Remember: widdershins.”

Elizabeth glances around. Nothing distinguishes this spot from the rest, except the silence. The quiet is absolute. It closes in on them, bringing with it a dry, irresistible chill.

Maggie points upward; Elizabeth’s gaze follows the gesture. The trees, both trunks and branches, as well as the vines swaddling them shift, slide apart and around, arrange themselves like a clockwork mechanism into a square labyrinth. Her vision goes vertiginous, as she’s at once looking down from a great height into the maze and standing just outside one of its walls.

Inhaling sharply, gripping the hilt of her sword for reassurance, Elizabeth steps forward-but-also-up-and-simultaneously- _down_ into the labyrinth. Its walls are close, overgrown with moss and the desiccated remains of opportunist shrubbery. The sky above fades from the dark of a Jamaican jungle to a nacreous overcast glare. The chill persists, grows sharper and colder as she takes turn after left turn.

She’s married to a ghost. She knows this cold well.

Thorns on dead vines still draw blood. Her face and hands are scraped and stinging as she weaves her way deeper into the maze. She can hear birds now, but different ones; they chitter and chirp, then explode out of the walls, fleeing in clouds that tilt and pleat.

She takes another turn and a raven hops down the path ahead of her. One more turn spills her into the center.

The hungry man waits for her. He is all bloody maw and useless limbs the color of dead fish flesh, pale as the sky above them. In one hand, he holds a chain wrapped tightly around the neck of a young African woman. She is kneeling, arms bound as well. When she meets Elizabeth’s eyes, her face is at once sorrowful and resigned. She looks like any girl for sale in the markets of Port Royal, defiant in posture, grief-stricken in expression.

In his other hand, the pale hunger holds two chains, one for James, the other for Will. James’s wig is askew; a dark bruise swells over Will’s cheek. They are holding hands.

“What is the meaning of this?” Elizabeth draws her sword.

“Don’t!” her husbands shout in unison. 

The pale man unfolds himself, rising to his feet. His belly is distended, his genitals shrunken like dead leaves. He is knock-kneed, lurching toward her. He licks his mouth with a tongue the size of a cow’s and makes a hoarse lowing sound.

On his bare shoulders are perched gold epaulets designating the admiral of the fleet.

He drags his captives as he comes toward her. He scents the air with open mouth and lolling tongue. He stinks of tuberoses and the grave.

She has to choose. Elizabeth knows that with as much certainty as if she’d been instructed. 

James twists in his chains; though a ghost, he’s caught here every bit as much as Will and the slave woman, who are still flesh.

Her heart shudders in her chest. Elizabeth tries to move aside so the pale man cannot pin her against the wall, but he moves suddenly, _gracefully_ and swiftly, and she has to duck to avoid his mouth. She slashes her sword awkwardly across his torso. Ribs fracture like driftwood; his viscera burst into dark, noxious clouds that rain grit and gravel over her boots.

Howling, he yanks on the slave’s chain, dragging her up to his side. Her eyes go wide, her mouth opens in a silent scream, hands curled around the chain cutting into her throat. Before Elizabeth can move, the woman parts the chain as easily as a prow splits the waters. The pale man is panting now, vines creeping around his throat and face, thorns piercing his eyes and plugging his nostrils. He does not bleed. Ash sifts from the cuts.

Hurriedly, Elizabeth frees her husbands, helping them to their feet and embracing them. They sway together, Will’s face against her neck, her own buried at James’s shoulder, James gasping into Will’s hair. Ghost and cursed specter and pirate king: they make for strange, passionate bedfellows, that’s for sure.

The African woman stands with one foot on the pale man’s open chest. She grinds her heel against his throat, snapping the weak old tendons that kept his head attached to his body. Without looking, she kicks his head away, back into the maze.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth tells her.

The woman bows. Behind her, the moss and vines on the wall continue to creep back to life, gaining color, strengthening, moment by moment.

Elizabeth bows deeply to the woman and, holding her hands, James and Will do, too.

The sky is blue and fair above them. They have a single turn to take out of the maze, toward home.


End file.
